Category: joint families

The Big Fat Indian Wedding is not a myth, but of mythological proportions.

In India marriage is not just a family affair anymore its an extended family and friends affair, the bigger the better. Considering how much we Indians spend on the many aspects of the marriage, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to actually have a pre-marriage couple and the couples family counselling session followed by a visit to the lawyers to sign the Pre-Nup. Considering the diminishing ROI on most marriages these days, what with quickie divorces and separations, these costs are fairly negligible. While the counselling session will check the sanity levels of both the parties, the pre-nup will make sure the sanity is maintained, especially with the clauses on relatives and their visitation rights in the first 5 years of the couple getiing married.

I can already see the aunty’s fluttering their eyelashes and wondering how can someone who is sane even consider going to a therapist or a lawyer. Only sick and crazy people knock silently on the therapists door, not the wise ones, especially those who have made the very wise decision of getting married and taking on the responsibility of not just the spouse but the spouses’s entire family tree, and that too, not just of the family branches but the branch-lets too.

Since I am single and don’t have a significant other to complain about, i’m often approached by my friends who tell me how lucky I am to be single. the reasons range from a crappy mother-in-law, who insists on accompanying the couple everywhere, to a sister-in-law who refuses to stop interfering in her brothers home , even though she’s been married 10 years,etc,etc. But the most common complaint is that of the extended joint family, so while most people might now live in a nuclear family, the family members visiting them all the time, don’t make them feel like they are so Nuclear after all. Anybody who has a son or daughter will want to visit you for their offspring’s admissions into a college, or someone falls sick and pronto your nursing them back to health. So in essence, they make sure that they get the value for money that they would have probably spent on the wedding gift for you. So most often it’s the guy’s side of the family and just when you’ve bid them goodbye, someone from the girl’s side is ringing the doorbell. And god forbid if there are kids, who insist on sleeping with the very sweet aunt, the couples love life is non-existent.

what advice can one give a harried friend whose been living this life for the last two months and haven’t a night of good sleep. Well i asked her to pack her bags, scroll through her address book and head out to the other newly weds house for a week of R&R..while she can indulge in some romance, the newly weds will make sure they r well taken care of.. after all even the newly weds need a break from each-other and like one of my aunt says, “after all they have to spend their whole life , looking at each others faces, what difference does it make if we go visit them for 2 weeks”..

Did my friend take the advice? I haven’t had a chance to check with her, after-all even though I am single, I am hosting the branch-lets from my side of the family. Now I get it,why my friends are so jealous of my singledom, that’s because, I get to host only my side of the family which leaves me with at least 6 months of ME time..Ahh this benefit of being Single–its priceless